Part 1

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The Radcliffe Unit in France collaborated with the French Red Cross in its work of reconstruction after the Armistice. It was as a member of this unit and as chauffeuse in the devastated regions that the writer received the impressions set forth in these sketches.

Where the Sabots Clatter Again

by Katherine Shortall

Ralph Fletcher Seymour Publisher 410 S. Michigan Avenue Chicago

PUBLISHED FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE RADCLIFFE COLLEGE ENDOWMENT FUND IN AN EDITION LIMITED TO 150 COPIES

SECOND EDITION OF 150 COPIES

1921

WHERE THE SABOTS CLATTER AGAIN.

THE BRIDE OF NOYON.

A returning flush upon the plain. Streaks of color across a mangled landscape: the gentle concealment of shell hole and trench. This is what one saw, even in the summer of 1919. For the sap was running, and a new invasion was occurring. Legions of tender blades pushed over the haggard No Man's Land, while reckless poppies scattered through the ranks of green, to be followed by the shyer starry sisters in blue and white. Irrepressibly these floral throngs advanced over the shell torn spaces, crowding, mingling and bending together in a rainbow riot beneath the winds that blew them. They were the vanguard.

* * * * *

In the midst of the reviving fields lay Noyon: Noyon, that gem of the Oise, whose delicate outline of spires and soft tinted roofs had graced the wide valley for centuries. Today the little city lay blanched and shapeless between the hills, as all towns were left that stood in the path of the armies. The cathedral alone reared its battered bulk in the midst; a resisting pile, its two grim and blunted towers frowning into the sky. Nobly Gothic through all the shattering, the great church rose out of the wreckage, with flying buttresses still outspread like brooding wings to the dead houses that had sunk about her.

But Noyon was not dead. We of the Red Cross knew that. We knew that in cellars and nooks of this labyrinth of ruin already hundreds of hearts were beating. On this calm September morning the newly cleared streets resounded with the healthful music of hammer and saw, and cartwheels rattled over the cobblestones, while workmen called to each other in resonant voices. Pregnant sounds, these, the significance of which we could estimate. For we had seen Noyon in the early months of the armistice: tangled and monstrous in her attitude of falling, and silent with the bleeding silence of desertion. Then, one memorable day, the stillness had been broken by the first clatter of sabots--that wooden noise, measured, unmistakable, approaching. Two pairs of sabots and a long road. Two broad backs bent under bulging loads; an infant's wail; a knock at the Red Cross Door--but that was nearly eight months before.

The Poste de Secours was closed for the first time since Madame de Vigny and her three young infirmières had come to Noyon. Two women stood without, one plump and bareheaded, the other aged and bent, with a calico handkerchief tied over her hair. They stared at the printed card tacked upon the entrance of the large patched-up house that served as Headquarters for the French Red Cross.

"Tiens! c'est fermé," exclaimed Madame Talon, shaking the rough board door with all her meagre weight, "and I have walked eight kilometers to get a jupon, and with rheumatism, too."

"Haven't you heard the news?" asked her companion with city-bred scorn.

"Ah? What news?" The crisp old face crinkled with anticipation.

"Why, Mademoiselle Gaston is to be married today."

"Tiens, tiens! est-ce possible? What happiness for that good girl!" and Madame Talon, forgetful of the loss of her jupon, smiled a wrinkled smile till her nose nearly touched her chin, and her eyes receding into well worn little puckers, became two snapping black points.

"Is it really so? And the bridegroom--who is he?"

There followed that vivacious exchange of questions and answers and speculations which accompanies the announcement of a marriage the world over.

Mademoiselle Gaston was the daughter of an ancient family of Noyon. But now, her ancestral home was a heap of debris, a tomb for men of many nations, which she did not like to visit. She took me there once, and we walked through the old tennis court where a little summer house remained untouched, its jaunty frailty seeming to mock at the desolation of all that is solid.

"Ah, I have had good times here," she said in the expressionless voice of one who has endured too much.

For now she was alone. Tennis tournaments for her were separated from the present by a curtain of deaths, by the incomparable space of those four years.

Mademoiselle Gaston had played her part in it all. When the Germans were advancing upon Noyon, she had stuck to her post and remained in the hospital where she nursed her compatriots under enemy rule during the first occupation of the city. Something about her had made them treat her with respect, although I have been told that the Prussian officers were always vaguely uncomfortable in her presence. There was, perhaps, not enough humility in her clear eyes, and they worked her to the breaking point. Yet so impeccable and businesslike was her conduct that they could never convict her of any infringement of rules. Little did these pompous invaders suspect how this slender capable girl with the hazel eyes was spicing the hours behind their backs, and drawing with nimble and irreverent pencil portraits of her captors, daring caricatures which she exhibited in secret to the terrified delight of her patients. Luckily for her this harmless vengeance had not been discovered, for doubtless she would have paid dearly for her Gallic audacity.

She was small of stature and very thin. Not even the nurse's flowing garb could conceal the angularity of her figure. One wondered how so fragile a frame could have survived the crashings and shakings of war. What secret of yielding and resisting was hers? The tension, nevertheless, had left its mark upon her young face; had drawn the skin over the aquiline profile, and compressed the sensitive mouth in a line too rigid for her years. This severity of feature she aggravated by pinning her coiffe low over a forehead as uncompromising as a nun's. Not a relenting suggestion of hair would she permit. Yet whatever of tenderness or hope she strove thus to hood, nothing could suppress the beauty of her luminous eyes; caressing eyes that belied her austere manner. No sight of blood nor weariness, no insult had hardened them. Even when their greenish depths went dark and wide with reminiscence, a light lurked at the bottom--the reflection of something dancing. Yes, everybody loved Mademoiselle Gaston.

For weeks we had seen it coming. She had told us of her engagement at breakfast one Monday morning after a week-end visit to her married sister in Paris. It had seemed a good business proposition. She announced it as such, calmly, with a frankness that astonished my American soul. We were pleased. She would have a château and money, and a de before her name. Best of all she would have peace and companionship after her lonely struggles. On the whole we were very much pleased. Madame de Vigny and her gentle niece were entirely delighted. Noyon was vociferous in its approval and congratulations. I could have wished--but at least I did not thrust any transatlantic notions into the general contentment.